Beyond Clinical Diagnostics
Field use of biological IVD detection equipment
    Beyond Clinical Diagnostics         Photo by Andrew Brookes The responsibility of quickly ascertaining the validity of bioterrorist attacks and protecting the public from such potential attacks has fallen to first responders (i.e., police, military, public health authorities). They have come to rely on IVD technologies that have been adapted from clinical settings into various field arenas and can rapidly determine the degree of hazard in...
Integrating detection and identification of biothreat agents
            The public perception of the risks and dangers of potentially imminent biothreats has changed considerably since certain events occurred in the 1990s and earlier this decade. The 1995 sarin attack in the Tokyo subway system that killed 12 people and injured more than 5000, and the 2001 anthrax scare at U.S. postal offices that killed five and infected 15 made major headlines and served as a wake-up call. However, the 2004 ricin attacks in a U.S....
Building veterinary biodefense diagnostics
            Pam Hullinger is the chief veterinary officer and leader of the Food and Agricultural Security Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, CA). In 2001, she was one of approximately 300 U.S. veterinarians selected to assist the United Kingdom's rapid response to a devastating outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. She can be reached at hullinger2@llnl.gov. When the United Kingdom suffered an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (...
Adapting point-of-care technology to nonclinical settings
          The RAMP reader and clinical test kit. Point-of-care (POC) testing has become a standard element of patient care in a wide variety of clinical applications. However, the concepts that distinguish POC technology—operation simple enough for nonlaboratory users; little or no maintenance requirement; and rapid, reliable results—mean that it can be applied equally well in many nonclinical settings. First responders, for example, when...
The role of diagnostics in bioterrorism
          Samples are loaded into the Ruggedized Advanced Pathogen Detection System to screen for potential biological warfare agents using the Critical Reagent Program polymerase chain reaction reagents. The significance of the effects of bioterrorism-associated category A agents (e.g., anthrax, plague, tularemia, and smallpox) on human health, public safety, and the economy makes the availability of rapid and accurate diagnostic testing of...
Developing biodefense IVDs is still a priority
      Researchers at the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated that the Newcastle disease virus could be detected using an environmental air sampling system, which is much less labor-intensive and time-consuming than conventional swab sampling. As anthrax scares go, this one had as benign a beginning and ending as possible in today's terror-obsessed world. A New York City musician who returned from...
Addressing the bioterrorism risk
        At a time of tight federal research budgets, many IVD companies are facing the prospects of government funding cutbacks. However, while most government agencies have seen their R&D appropriations level off or fall since 2003, military spending continues to be strong. According to an analysis of the White House's proposed fiscal 2007 budget by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Washington, DC), the Department of Defense's grant-...
Military labs court new IVD partners
  Record-high U.S. military science and technology funding paired with the largest overseas troop deployment since the first Gulf War have highlighted the need that government biomedical laboratories have for collaborating with the IVD industry. In April, Cepheid (Sunnyvale, CA) announced that it would produce a rapid real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagent with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR; Silver Spring, MD) to detect leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease...
Developments in diagnostic technologies for bioterrorism agents
Figure 1. Basic structure of an organic light-emitting device (OLED). The total thickness of the OLED, not including the glass or plastic substrate and the sensor film, is ~0.5 µm (a). Basic “back-detection” geometry of an OLED-based O2 and glucose sensor. The OLED pixels are formed between the indium tin oxide (ITO) anode and the Al metal cathode (b) (click to enlarge). Diagnostic technologies for bioterrorism agents have received an upwelling of interest in recent...
Tailored assays for the detection of foreign disease pathogens in animals
  Oral swabs from dairy cattle are collected and placed in media for transport to the laboratory for testing. The development of high-throughput multiplexed assays will enable researchers to quickly diagnose both endemic and exotic diseases in animals from a single sample. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has significantly improved its ability to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks. Although gaps remain, investments in bioterrorism...